This invention relates generally to automatically controlled miniature musical systems comprising a plurality of simulated musical instruments with associated sounds which together form a musical band, such as for instance a rock band, to play pre-programmed tunes.
Individual stand-alone miniature (toy) musical instrument assemblies, which include speakers to produce pre-programmed musical sounds associated with the particular musical instrument are known. However, such individual stand-alone instruments, including guitars, drums, etc., are by themselves quite limited, cannot produce a true combined xe2x80x9cbandxe2x80x9d sound effect, and further do not include other possible band members, such as a turntablist who may xe2x80x9cplayxe2x80x9d a turntable as a musical instrument.
Hence, it would be desirable to have a miniature programmed musical system which is arranged and controlled to play like a real band, in particular a rock band.
Accordingly, the present invention is a miniature, self-controlled musical system, comprising: a plurality of musical instrument assemblies, each assembly representing a selected musical instrument and including a processor/storage member for storing musical sounds associated with said musical instruments for a particular pre-programmed song for playing the musical sounds, and a control member for controlling the operating status of the musical instrument assembly; an initiating control element associated with each musical instrument assembly for selecting that musical instrument assembly as a master assembly for a particular pre-programmed song; and means for communicating control information from the selected master assembly to the remaining musical assemblies to initiate or play the particular song.